your childs grief

their sorrows the webbing that entraps you
like a thrashing fish. That when your child grieves, mother,
you bend and grieve.
Alicia Suskin Ostriker

that line kept replaying over and over in my head tonight, while i held Lucca in my arms. She was sobbing in grief over her lost cat. And i was quietly crying over my inability to fix things for her. My simple inability to make her pain go away.
Lucca has had to grieve far too many things in her short 6 years. It all started with a guinea pig.


See, Lucca has always been the kindest and gentlest child i have ever known. At two she never fought over toys with other children. Never hit, or called names. She was always kind to her baby brother , born when she was 2 1/2. I know if a baby is within her radar she will be like a moth to a light. She wants to nurture, to love. It just seeps from her. So, when she was 4 years old i decided to get her her own pet. I knew she would do wonderfully. So we researched and came to the conclusion a guinea pig would be best. We got a baby girl, and Lucca named her Pollyanna. Lucca was wonderfully sweet with her dear pet. She fed her, watered her, and held her so very gently. However, as small pets sometimes do, Pollyanna succumbed to some unknown malady and went to guinea pig heaven.
At first Lucca didn't get it. she was interested in the whole burial thing. But about two days after it hit her-
Grief
From her room, long after she had been put to bed i heard a plaintive sound. My daughter was moaning. i went in fast, thinking she was hurt. She was hurting , but not in the sense i had imagined. She choked out that she missed Pollyanna. We talked, she cried and repeated this night after night.
Then after about a month, when the nightly crying had lessened to a few times a week, we decided on a second try. We were not going to attempt another small caged animal. This time we opted for something we knew well, a kitten. We had two other cats (niether particurlary fond of children). The kitten we got was a ragdoll, siamese mix. The most beautiful kitten i had ever seen, and Lucca was in love.

Lucca named her Tinkerbell, and that cat really was hers. She was completely uninterested in anyone but Lucca. She slept in her bed every night, and let Lucca carry her all over the house.
Then December of 2009 came and Lucca would face a side of death that most children will not.
She met her sister for the first time in a viewing room at the funeral home.
Aquila was her baby. I say that because before i even told anyone i was expecting she walked up to me and told me she had prayed for God to give her a baby sister for Christmas. I knew at the time i was due for a Christmas baby, but did not yet know it was a girl. We talked about the baby to come every single night for the next 8 months.When we lost Aquila all of Lucca's hopes and dreams were dashed right alongside mine.
She cried in my arms during the funeral like i never knew a child could cry...like i never want to hear again in my life.I could feel my heart being ripped from my body with each wail. It was one of the top worst moments in my life, to know and feel my child hurting like that.And i could do nothing.
For many many nights we would read books about babies that died because she wanted to read those. She would cry at night, as would i.
Then two months after burying my daughter, our sweet basset hound Bertha became very ill. The vet said anything we could do would be extremely expensive and most likely would not save her. So, for kindness sake, we had her put to sleep. I felt like such a traitor, leaving her there. And having to explain what happened to the children. And Lucca, oh my darling girl. She would start crying hours after bed. First it would be sobs for Bertha , then it would move back to pollyanna. She would no longer say Aquila's name, but we both knew she was in those sobs too...
And now Lucca has another reason for tears.
Over the Christmas break, Tinkerbell vanished. We are pretty sure she was stolen, but don't know for sure. But, little does that matter, because tonight it sunk into Lucca that Tinkerbell is probably not coming back. Lucca has LOST again. And tonight when she sobbed i had no words. I am all out of words to try to make it better. All i could do is hold her and cry. Because it does suck. it is not fair.